


Lumos

by colormetheworld



Series: Tricks [11]
Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: F/F, HALLOWEEN BRINGS OUT THE SOFTNESS IN ME, Is there a rating below G?, SO SQUISHY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21263048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colormetheworld/pseuds/colormetheworld
Summary: Halloween comes again. It brings a couple surprises.





	Lumos

Maura can hear the sugar high from the front porch. 

Pushing open the door to the front hall only serves to amplify the high pitched happiness of several children, her daughter the loudest of them all. 

“TJ,” Maura hears Mae say, her voice full of authority. “You have to make sure to keep your bangs out of your eyes. Otherwise, how will they see the scar and know who we are?” 

“People just know who Harry Potter is,” TJ says good-naturedly. He’d wanted to be the Neville Longbottom of their little contingent, but Mae - not unlike the intelligent witch she was portraying that evening - talked him into Harry. 

“You’re the only one of our friends with the right hair,” she’d said reasonably. “Archie’s gonna be Neville, and Rose is gonna be Luna,  _ and  _ her brother said he’d be Ron. Come  _ on _ , Tommy Junior... _ please? _ ” 

Maura had worried that this kind of wheedling was going to lose Mae the little group of friends she’d managed to accumulate, but Jane had told her to forget about it. 

“Besides,” she’d said, wrapping her arms around Maura’s waist. “TJ has such a crush on her, he’d dress up as anything she asked.” 

A second shock for Maura, That someone might find her daughter a worthwhile playmate, and best friend, and more…” 

Jane had sucked her teeth in an affectionate way. “Like mother like daughter,” she’d said. “Totally oblivious to their superpowers.” 

It had taken Maura some time to figure that one out as well. 

Now, she makes her way down the hall and around the corner and encounters the group of children that Mae has come to call friends. 

There are Rose and her brother Addison, both additions from the soapbox derby world, who live three streets away and call Mae every Friday after their favorite TV show to discuss. Maura still feels a thrill of shock and excitement on behalf of her daughter when her cell phone rings each week. 

There is Archie A. Archibald, a boy in the grade below Mae at school who was made fun of mercilessly until Mae stepped in at recess one day. She told the other boys who were teasing him that her mother not only knew how to dissect people into little bits, but that she was  _ also _ dating a detective and could therefore not be punished if she chose to do so. 

Although this declaration had earned her her first stern talking to from Jane, it also earned the unflinching adoration of Archie, whose mother approached Maura during pick up one day with tears in her eyes. 

(“My son will NOT stop talking about your daughter. Thank you  _ so  _ much.” Maura wondered momentarily if there were other mothers out there who worried about their children as she did.)

And there’s TJ, Mae’s first and best friend, and “basically her cousin,” as Jane liked to point out. He is currently at the center of their little gaggle, letting Mae fix his tie, smiling his Rizzoli half-smile that says,  _ I’m really enjoying this, but don’t you dare ask me to my face.  _

“Well,” Maura says, taking in their cloaks and ties, their little wands and shiny Oxford loafers. 

“Don’t you all look-” but then Jane comes around the corner, and she forgets what she was going to say. 

Mae had chosen Harry Potter characters for all of them. The main children character for herself and her friends and then, surprisingly, Bill and Fleur for Jane and Maura. 

“Wouldn’t you rather the two of us be Hogwarts teachers, love?” Maura questioned her daughter shortly after this revelation. “Maybe Jane doesn’t want to play a male character.” 

“There’s no girls in love with girls in the book, Mommy,” Mae explained. “And you guys have to be people in love.”

“We don’t have-” Maura began, but Mae cut her off. 

“Yes,” she’d said definitively. “You do. And Bill and Fleur are perfect, anyway.” 

Jane, half engrossed in the recap of the world series, turned her attention to Mae. “Why’s that?” 

Mae hesitated. “Well...Sometimes you tell Mommy that you don’t know how you ‘lucked out’ and got to be with us,” she’d said slowly. “And after Bill got attacked, everyone thought Fleur would leave him.” 

Silence. Mae was shifting her attention between the adults, looking for understanding. 

“But Fleur told Mrs. Weasley she’d never. ‘Member?” 

Jane nodded. 

“And Mommy always says, “It wasn’t luck. We deserve each other.” 

More silence. Jane wasn’t looking at Mae anymore, but her attention had not returned to the television. 

Mae had waited another beat before settling back against her mother. 

“Bill’s scars are on his face, and yours are on your hands,” she’d said. “That’s the only difference.” 

So Jane is currently dressed as Bill Weasley. She is sans red hair but is not without freckles or stubble, both painstakingly applied with what Maura suspects is her eye-liner pencil. 

She is wearing old rumpled jeans and a dress vest over a collared shirt that is rolled to the elbows. Her hair is in a loose ponytail. 

She looks masculine and sexy and  _ hot _ , and for a moment, Maura forgets there is anyone else in the room. 

Do I pull off “brooding dragon tamer?” she asks as she approaches. She chuckles as Maura just continues to stare. 

“If I didn’t know any better, doctor, I’d think you like this five o’clock shadow a little too much.” 

Maura manages to swallow without swallowing her tongue. 

“It’s not a displeasing aesthetic,” she concedes, reaching up to tug gently on Jane’s ponytail. “You look extremely handsome.” 

“You’re right,” Archie pipes up from behind them. “They do look at each other mushy a  _ lot _ .” 

Mae nods. “I told you,” she says. “Can you imagine if I made them like... _ Quidditch _ players or something?” 

Maura pulls back rolling her eyes, and Jane laughs loud. 

“Mood broken,” she says good-naturedly. “Go get your dress on, Mo. We don’t want to miss the good candy.” 

As Maura turns away, Jo Friday comes trotting around the corner, bright pink from the tip of her tail to the start of her nose. 

“Jo!” Maura says, shocked. 

Mae and TJ laugh. “She’s a pygmy puff,” TJ says, still giggling. “It’s not gonna hurt her, Aunt Maura! It’s just temporary!” 

Maura is stunned before she realizes why. When she finally works out that it is because TJ has called her “aunt,” it is too late to say anything. All of the kids are bending around Jo Friday, telling her how gorgeous she looks. 

Maura decides that she wouldn’t have said anything anyway. The idea of TJ making the same mistake later in the evening makes her feel almost giddy. 

“Maura!” Jane comes back around the corner from the dining room, holding several little jackets. “Chop chop!” 

Maura hurries up the stairs. 

…….

Just the three of them return to the house on Beacon Hill later that evening. Jane’s stubble has smeared a little bit, and her long coat is now around Maura’s shoulders. 

She’s carrying a very exhausted little Hermione. 

But they still head into the living room and turn on Hocus Pocus, the same way they have for the last three years. 

Maura tilts Mae’s bag onto the coffee table, smiling as Jane whistles low. 

“Good haul this year, tiny.”

Mae smiles sleepily. “This has been my favorite Halloween,” she says. “My favorite one ever. I can’t wait until school tomorrow. Until lunch.” 

Jane takes Maura’s hand. The doctor doesn’t have to say what it means to her that this sentiment is coming from her daughter. 

They start sorting the candy into its four main piles: BEST, OKAY, SUBPAR, and CREEPY. 

Maura reaches out to pick up a suspicious little cardboard box that fits in the palm of her hand. 

“The Mahoneys?” she asks Mae, shaking her head when the little girl shrugs, not looking up. “I talked to them last year,” she tells Jane, “about buying packaged snacks? Just because it’s so much safer? Linda Mahoney called me a ‘fuddy-duddy!’ Can you believe?” 

Jane’s expression is studiously neutral. 

Maura pulls the top off the little box and tips its contents into her palm with a sigh. 

Out falls a delicate diamond ring. 

For a long, long minute, there is silence in the living room. Maura only just now notices that Hocus Pocus has been paused. She stares at the ring in her hand trying to fit it into a narrative of the night that makes sense. 

Mae, much more awake now, is looking at her from Jane’s arms. 

“Mommy?” 

Maura doesn’t even look up. 

“I think we stupified her,” Mae whispers. 

“I think you’re right,” Jane whispers back. She shifts Mae onto the couch beside her so that she can scoot closer to Maura on the couch. 

“I love you,” she says under her breath. “More than I’d ever thought I could love another person. I know a lot of things have to happen before an actual marriage, okay? I know that there are a lot of things to consider. But I have loved you and your kid from moment one.” Jane pauses. “Or,” she says, lips twitching, “at least since you put down the knife and smiled at me.” 

Maura means to laugh, but her vocal cords do not oblige. She makes a truly ungainly sound. A strangled moan and a hiccup in one. 

Both Mae and Jane sit back, startled, although both are smiling wide. 

“Okay,” Mae says, ever reasonable. “How about this? If you want to marry Jane...just put the ring in the BEST pile. If you don’t, put it in the CREEPY.” 

“The creepy!” Jane says, pretending to be hurt. “Why not just the SUBPAR?” 

Maura starts to laugh before Mae can respond. 

She laughs and leans forward to throw her arms around Jane and kiss her. 

And then she nods and starts to cry. 

And she doesn’t put the ring into  _ any _ of the piles with the candy. 

Instead, she slips it onto her finger. 

“Yes?” Jane questions? She looks, at that moment, like her Harry Potter character, pleasantly surprised and delighted that she’s been chosen. 

Maura kisses Jane again. 

“Yes.” 

  
  



End file.
